This section has been a tad dull up to date so maybe we can up the saucy factor

When finishing senior high i wrote an essay on whether or not pornography should be legal and freely available. At the time I was 18 and investigated the issue with as much thoroughness that a particular piece of anatonmy allowed.

Nothing much changed - however after reading about the trade in the sex industry I cannot help but to feel bad if I ever watch anything on the internet - knowing full well that the person who looks so innocent is so often made to look so by thugs using her sexuality as a tool to make money.

Should an adult be allowed to legally buy and trade in pornographic goods? Share your thoughts (BM - let us know if it gets too out of line)

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"truth is a group of metaphors, metonyms, and anthropomorphisms; a sum of human relation which is poetically and rhetorically intensified, metamorphosed and adored so that after a long time it is then codified in the binding canon."

Antoine - of course i'm ready - though thinking back to that paper I argued mostly on the basis of economics and natural law. Now if only I could remember what on earth I wrote.

Logged

"truth is a group of metaphors, metonyms, and anthropomorphisms; a sum of human relation which is poetically and rhetorically intensified, metamorphosed and adored so that after a long time it is then codified in the binding canon."

This wont get read by to many so I will post it here and else where. But it raises interesting questions

A RECENT newspaper story told of a 15-year-old Sydney boy, terminally ill with cancer, who said to the nurse caring for him that he wanted to experience sexual intercourse before he died. The nurse asked a psychologist to see the boy and a psychiatrist was consulted.

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The healthcare team looking after him thought about "passing around the hat" to raise money to pay for the services of a prostitute. After he died, the boy's parents learned that he had had sex with a prostitute. On the issue, it was reported that approximately 50 per cent of people surveyed strongly endorsed what had occurred and 50 per cent were appalled.

What are the ethics of this situation? The issues must be identified to answer that.

Is the problem that a 15-year-old boy is having sex? What if he had a girlfriend the same age who wanted to have sex with him before he died? If we find the latter acceptable, is the problem, therefore, that a prostitute is involved?

Do we find the latter more acceptable if we refer to a sex industry worker? Does it matter ethically that this sexual encounter was not based on a personal caring relationship? Does it make an ethical difference that the young man is dying and that this was an unsolicited key wish on his part?

Without being disrespectful or meaning to trivialise the issues involved, could our anthropomorphic reaction to the situation of the movie star lion Bongo – whose story has recently been front page news in North America – offer any insights?

Bongo lived his life without sex in order to prevent him from becoming aggressive. When he was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer a lioness was flown to California from a Quebec safari park to be his sexual partner. Were the frequently repeated statements that Bongo should have the chance to experience sex before he died really a projection of what we believe we would want if we were in the same circumstances? Should it make a difference whether we are an adult or only 15?

OR is the problem that the healthcare professionals facilitated the young man's sexual encounter? Or that they acted without the parents' knowledge or agreement? Or that they facilitated an encounter with a prostitute? Third-party involvement in a situation changes the ethics and sometimes the law.

For example, suicide is not a crime but assisting suicide is. And healthcare professionals are important people in forming and carrying societal values in secular societies such as Australia and Canada. Are we mainly concerned about the effect of their action on our important shared values? Or is the problem that we desexualise people who are ill or physically or mentally disabled or even just too old – as compared with too young as in this case – especially if they are institutionalised or hospitalised?

We have started to examine the ethics of both sexual activity and its prevention among institutionalised adults in need of long-term special care. Some of our attitudes and values in these respects have been adopted primarily for our moral comfort and organisational convenience, not the benefit of the people receiving care. And in some cases they result in cruel unethical outcomes, for instance, the physical separation of an aged couple who have slept in the same bed most of their lives.

Or is the problem at the level of the meaning of sexual intercourse? Such meaning is relevant and created at personal and societal levels, and can range from simply the physical to the moral, existential and religious.

When a totally private sexual act that is not legally prohibited is involved, we respect personal privacy and rightly do not inquire into its meaning. But the involvement of healthcare professionals in this case gave the boy's act a public aspect and, consequently, it challenges us to consider the meaning and values that sexual intercourse does and should carry at the societal level in a postmodern society.

Not an easy question to answer when we recognise that, whatever other needs it may fulfil, sexual intercourse has a primary purpose of transmitting human life to future generations and is still – cloning and other new reproductive technologies aside – the way in which we do that. What kind of respect and values regarding sexual intercourse does that demand of us as a society? And how can we accommodate changed sexual attitudes? Despite this, most of us still, at least deep down, believe that engaging in sexual intercourse should matter.

In a different ethical domain, what journalistic ethics should have governed this case? Should this story ever have been published?

Finally, could this have been a life-affirming act on the part of this young man in the face of death? The hallmark of people who want euthanasia is hopelessness. Might this young man, in his own way, have found hope in his experience?

Logged

"truth is a group of metaphors, metonyms, and anthropomorphisms; a sum of human relation which is poetically and rhetorically intensified, metamorphosed and adored so that after a long time it is then codified in the binding canon."